My favorite thing about traveling for work is that they always send me west.  The time difference is a little lame at night, but in the morning, I feel like a real live Morning Person.  6 am here is 8 am at home!  I’m sleeping til 8 but it looks like 6!

I wish I was a morning person, because I love getting up in the morning and taking my precious time getting ready.  Making coffee, watching random sitcoms in syndication, making a bath, checking email…

But I’m not a morning person.  Not at all.  Waking up to an alarm is my least favorite thing.

So I do love it when I’m already awake when my alarm goes off and I can pretend just for a few days that that’s something I’m good at.

Simple things.

Do you love or hate mornings?

I went in to Preston’s yesterday to work on Heart in a Jar, and I brought Michelle with me to play around and take pictures.  It was brilliant.  We finally recording vocals on “What If You Don’t,” re-recording vocals on “The One” (and mostly did this one in one take. ONE TAKE. seriously, what a good feeling), and today we’re going back to work.

I have one more piano track to lay down, some vocals to re-record, and then we’re going to sit down and listen to everything and decide what other instrumentalists we need to bring in.

It’s been a very, very long time coming.  It’s almost unbelievable how long we’ve been working on this project.  I’m ridiculously thankful it’s taken this long, though, because if we had rushed through it, it never would have turned out the way it’s going to turn out.

I’m so excited.

Well… there was plenty to be patient about, that’s for sure.  Finding a job.  Finding a better job.  Making enough money to pursue the dream and reason I came to Nashville in the first place.  Finding someone to fall in love with.

But at that point it was all so far away.  I had just gotten something I’d dreamed about for years. YEARS.  A lifetime.  Everything else could wait, because I had to figure out what it was I really wanted next.

Well… three years and many ups and downs and two jobs and two loves later, I’ve figured out what I want and need.  And let me tell you, this kind of patience is much, much harder to deal with.

Knowing what you want and knowing that someday you’ll probably have it, or most of it, or even some of it, or just knowing you’ll have the chance to chase what you want, is one special kind of lucky.  I understand that and I relish it.  But not knowing how long you’ll have to wait for it because most of the circumstances are completely out of your hands, along with being sort of unfulfilled and not challenged and feeling sort of dead-ended with other parts of your life…

That’s the hardest thing in the world to understand… not logically, of course, but at your very core.

There’s more I could say but won’t because of the public forum.  I guess the point is that I know there are life changing wonderful things in my future, and those things mean I can leave behind other things I don’t necessarily care for.  The problem isn’t waiting for what I want… because I know when I get it it will be worth every second I waited… but getting through the things I don’t want anymore and maybe never did,  with no set expiration date.

I used to pray for a life without expiration dates… but there are a few I wish I had right now.

Head over to the facebook page to “like” it if you like it. You’ll get a free song out of it.

I took the day off from my Normal People Job yesterday, grabbed my piano and my ukulele, sang some Taylor Swift in the car, and showed up ready to go.

It frustrates me how long it’s taken this project to get completed, I’ll be honest.  But we had a guitar player in yesterday, and hearing this guy tracking my songs… oh, man.  It will be worth the wait when it’s all done.

Truly.

But it is important.

It’s important that I moved here, that I struggled, that I got my heart broken into tiny little pieces and slowly picked them back up again.  It’s important that I made friends and got this job and sang in coffee shops and played around with Preston in the studio.  It’s important that I’ve seen Chris Thile and Dierks Bentley and Sarah Jarosz in concert, as well as some of my good friends.  It’s important that sometimes I don’t care that there is “Nashville Stuff” to do and I just go see a movie instead.  It’s important that I’ve learned to love food and all things kitchen related.  It’s very important that I managed to fall in love again despite myself.  It’s important that my best friend moved here last year and managed to shake my world up in her own special way.

It’s important because this is my home and was always meant to be.  Everchanging reasons aside, this is where I’m supposed to be.

I know money must flow, but to feel like I’m out to make money, for myself or for anyone else, is just repulsive to me.

That’s just it… it’s not my lack of ambition that’s kept me at a desk instead of behind a microphone for so long… I’m just afraid of chasing money instead of melody.  Seriously.  I am.

But when I put things in perspective, money has to come in somehow, and I may as well be doing what I love doing, and contributing in a way I feel is helpful.

So I’ve decided to soldier on this year, get out of my comfort zone, and just jump in this year.

And the thing is… there are perks.

Like getting to see your name on adorable little business cards.

Um, yes please.

I called my grandma.  I made a meal that took more than 20 minutes to prepare (hellooooo, eggplant parmesan, those two and a half hours were totally worth you).  I wrote a song.  And I made my little music corner a little more inspiring.

In the last house I lived, I had two rooms to myself.  That meant I had a bedroom and a room for music and other creative endeavors.  I could go in there and mentally shut out the rest of the world.  It was my sanctuary.

In this house, I live with good friends who always have stories to tell, a lot of shared space, and just a little to myself.  It’s not a bad thing, but it’s been an adjustment.

I thought my bedroom was just the way I wanted it, but earlier this week I realized it needed a little something more… not for the sake of the space but for the sake of creating a space in my head where I can go to just be.

I think I’m one step closer now.

Do you have a sanctuary?

Tell me about it.

Stacey Randol

Sarah Jarosz oh my dear soul.